And The Distance Between
by spatchka
Summary: Goku's random-- and I say random-- musings about the short-tempered monk.


All right. Edited it. Oh, gosh, tenses: very bad for the hair. Plus, ooc warning (Sanzo's part). There. Thank you reviewers for pointing that out.  
  
One more thing; about the title. It's supposed to be Sunrise, Sunset and the Distance Between but I thought I had too much allusions to the sun already so I just dropped the sunrise/sunset part altogether. And besides it would be just too damn long a title.  
  
* *  
  
AND THE DISTANCE BETWEEN  
  
He held the world during these hours, or so he thought. The world, that is, as he had known it years ago. These hours were quiet and serene that he felt selfish for having them all to himself. But the monks had all gone to bed early, having exerted themselves to a day's amount of praying and cleaning and praying. He never understood how they could remain so firm with something intangible and unseen. But that was the whole enchantment of it-- this thing called faith.  
  
It had been a year already. He wasn't counting the days, but the air was enough to dictate that. It brought the same sharp scent and the same nipping cold. Winter was on its way.  
  
The chamber was the only place soothing in that vast monastery. It felt old and rustic and he fit right inside it. Already the sheets were becoming translucent from the sun, from too much washing, from too many tears perhaps. But on consolation, they were familiar and comfortable and all at once he knew, as he instinctively paddled a hand through the fabric, that he was never one for worldly treasures.  
  
If one was smart enough to gaze at a window, one would realize its value and how it could thoroughly be both transparent and emulative. Goku had been smart enough, and so he looked straight into the enormity and the darkness that were, for a moment, the very threads of his life. "This"-- his hand touched the cold windows-"I wish I could hold on to this."  
  
But everything was fleeting, especially during those hours, because now he saw his own eyes being reflected. Yes, they hadn't changed. After all these years, they remained curious and golden. Only, there was a tinge of something else. For a moment, he thought he saw sadness.  
  
Another shift and the window was again transparent. He saw darkness and the silhouette of mountains. There were no walls surrounding the monastery during these hours. And he could dream again of setting foot on some unknown town and meeting incredible chefs and having brawls with youkais. If only time was not so cruel. If only he had the powers to stop the world from spinning.  
  
Again, he felt utterly helpless. The diadem on his head denoted a force so incredible that it had to be confined. But these hours showed him many great things he would never be in control of. These hours presented so many questions that he knew would remain hovering in the air. These hours told him how miniscule he was and how life could be at times quite senseless. But there was nothing wrong in pretending that he held the world during these hours and that the trivial things he believed in somehow mattered.  
  
His reflection had a patch of unruly brown hair, swiveling at all sides, uncut after such a long time. He was fond of it that way. He had always valued himself as otherworldly-- exotic to some extent. He caught himself brushing a hand through that hair and he smiled sheepishly. No, he was not vain. Perhaps he was only reliving something from long ago. Some memory of a lily-white hand whisking through his hair.  
  
He knew, at the very back of his mind, that it should come to this; that his thoughts wandering between the windows and the sheets would somehow end up with this. He told himself that he would never cry. But promises were broken as easily as glass.  
  
A year ago he sat staring at a window in another much spacious room. The room had the horrid smell of blood. It had amassed in a basin, which in turn was hidden from sight. The monks had never been discreet with their talking and their presumptions but above their voices he heard the unmistakable sound of coughing.  
  
His feet led him to the side of his bed. There was Sanzo, years still not quite visible in his face. But Goku had already breathed in the smell of decay. He knew it had been from a fatal wound but he could not remember which battle it had been from. All he knew was this baffling fear that he could lose something very precious.  
  
He kept silent, listening to the heavy coughing and watching the hand nearest his face twitch and grasp at the sheets. He knew he could not do anything, and so he waited for the coughing to subside and for the hand to relax. Only then was he able to route himself to look at Sanzo's face.  
  
There were traces of blood on his lips and his eyes looked tired. He wondered if this was truly Sanzo. He wondered if all these were only some half- mad dream. Yet it all looked real and the smell of blood hung in the air. His hand trailed and before he knew it, his thumb was raking the blood from those pale lips.  
  
Another hand clasped his wrist quite painfully. Sanzo glared.  
  
"Don't do that." Came his icy voice.  
  
"And don't give me that stupid look."  
  
Sanzo had come back and Goku beamed. He was itching to tell a story; one of his monastery garden fiascoes of how he came upon an abandoned nest, and how the monks had scolded him for being a noisy destroyer of nature. And Sanzo had listened through the whole tumble of words and even laughed at the right places.  
  
"You haven't changed." He said finally, his voice sounded pale as it interceded Goku's wild narrative.  
  
"I have-- I think." Goku paused, "In some ways."  
  
Sanzo managed a smile. It was eerie and beautiful the way it played on his lips. His violet eyes were gleaming in the dusk's remaining light.  
  
"Do you know what it means?" he asked.  
  
"It means," Goku was staring out the window, "It means I would have to see you --" (die) but he couldn't finish the word.  
  
Silence. He knew there was nothing else to say. The sunset was beautiful as always and he wondered if he could soar through those windows. He knew Sanzo was looking out too, and maybe, he was also thinking of flying away.  
  
"Goku--" Sanzo whispered, "Gomen nasai."  
  
Back in the present, in that small chamber, he felt a tear coursing down one cheek. It might have been only a strand of hair or an insect crawling down his face. But he knew otherwise. It was all right, he told himself. There was no one there to see this side of him. The sun rising was his only witness. Through the windows he could see another aspect of the world. The light was most beautiful, he had to admit.  
  
But he knew that the real sun had come and gone with the blonde hair and the violet eyes. *  
  
* *  
  
END.  
  
I am still trying to get out of my V. Woolf fixation-- can't get over the last novel I read. 


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